1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to networks, and more particularly, to systems and methods for resource reservation authentication in networks.
2. Description of Related Art
Existing packet-switched networks permit reliable, but not necessarily timely, communications between source nodes and destination nodes in the network. For many typical applications transmitting data across these networks, such reliable delivery is adequate. However, newer application types, such as videoconferencing, IP telephony, and other forms of multimedia communications, require data delivery that must be timely, but not necessarily reliable. To accommodate these performance requirements, various protocols, such as the Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP), have been proposed to ensure an adequate quality of service (QoS) between source and destination nodes in a packet-switched network.
Existing resource reservation protocols, such as RSVP, include algorithms for authenticating the reservation messages. In RSVP, authentication is performed over each hop in the path between the source node and the destination node. Thus, the source node, destination node, and every node in the packet-switched network in between them, must authenticate every message sent between the source node and the destination node (i.e., perform point-to-point authentication). This requires that security relationships be established, and updated, between each and every node in the path between the source and destination nodes, thereby increasing the processing burden on each node in the network and slowing the reservation of resources that ensure adequate quality of service for transmissions between the source and destination nodes.
Therefore, there exists a need for systems and methods that permit authentication of resource reservations between source and destination nodes in a packet-switched network that reduces the processing burden on the nodes in the network and speeds the reservation of resources when employing resource reservation protocols.